My language is the sweetest

I heard that I would hear people speak Bengali in its shops, restaurants, roads and alleys. I was told that I would see women shopping in sari and shalwar kameez, and men discussing international politics over shingara and steaming cups of tea. How many Bangladeshi expats would let go of a chance to experience Bangladesh away from it? I would never! 

It was the summer of 2013, it was my first time in Jamaica, a neighbourhood in Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City. I had heard so much about it from friends and relatives that I was convinced a summer vacation in NYC was incomplete without one trip to this diverse neighbourhood. 

So on one scorching afternoon of May 2013, my family and I embarked on our exploration of Jamaica. As we left the subway station and began walking along its Hillside Avenue with our then nine-month-old daughter, I turned my head to see anyone who spoke Bengali. No language ever sounded sweeter than my mother language!  

I spotted a group of young men standing on the pavement, chatting loudly in colloquial Bengali. I assumed that they hailed from different districts of Bangladesh, for they spoke in varied dialects. Their Bengali was not refined, but it did not bother me. It was the fact that they spoke my native language which lifted my spirits; their accent was an inconsequential matter altogether. 

I did not care whether I understood anything that they said among each other; it was not my business either. Those hardworking young men's first language was also my first language - this was all that mattered. 

One thing I have realised over my last eight years in the USA: it is often a source of delight when you meet someone who shares your mother tongue. 

Whenever I hear Bengali in a public place, I look around to catch a glimpse of the person or people speaking it. I do not necessarily go up to the speakers and strike a conversation with them, but it gives me a feeling of contentment to hear my native language in an English-speaking country. 

I also bond easily with people who speak my first language, which is also the reason why I have a large number of friends who have their roots in India's West Bengal. I cannot imagine anything that can be more satisfying than being able to express one's thoughts, feelings and opinions freely in one's own language. 

No matter how much I speak or write in English, it is always Bengali that I use to pour my heart out. I taught my daughter, who was born in America, to speak Bengali first. I strongly believed that it would be unfair not to expose my child to the world's sweetest language.

My child struggled during her first two years in pre-school. But I was not worried, because I knew nobody and nothing could stop her from learning English if she grew up in this country. I think there will come a day when she will thank me for teaching her the language, the only language on earth that was secured through blood and struggle. 

My Bengali-speaking American daughter learned to speak English when she was nearly four. 

With its rich vocabulary and the richness of emotional expressions that it offers its speakers, Bengali is the sweetest of all languages. If you do not speak Bengali then you might think that I am being extremely biased, but I bet you will change your mind, if you ever learn to speak it! 

By Wara Karim

Photo: Sazzad Ibne Sayed